While many businesses today use social media as a marketing tool to up their brand awareness and get greater market penetration, social media can also be used in the more social form of interacting with customers on their terms. It can be used to talk to customers and prospects directly, answer questions quickly, and address issues in real time. To get your business’s social media relations off on the right foot, here are three tips for nailing customer relations via social platforms.
1. Be Consistent with Your Responses and Profiles
With so many different social media platforms available for communicating with customers, it can seem daunting to take on customer relations using social. However, by coming to your customers on their level and in the format they feel most comfortable, Rebekah Radice of Social Media Examiner states that you can immensely set yourself apart from the competition.
However, you’ve got to be all in if you’re going to take on this challenge. Make sure you can give attention to each social platform you’re involved in and can field questions and problems quickly there. Your responses to tweets and your Twitter profile should be uniform with responses on Facebook or Google+ in order to keep your brand message clear for all customers regardless of their social platform of choice.
2. Create a Trusting Customer Relationship
Giving individualized attention to customers via social media can be a great benefit to your business, especially if it’s obvious to your customer that they’re speaking to real people and not just getting canned answers. One way to build this trust with your customers is to ensure that every employee who speaks to customers via social has their own unique voice.
Luke Chitwood, contributor to The Next Web, suggests that voices can be easily distinguished by customers merely by having the employees use their initials and sign on to the social accounts at the same times each week. The rapport they can build with your customers will be astonishing.
3. Never Ignore A Customer on Social Media
Moving part of your customer service and customer relations to social media can seem risky. We’ve all seen horror stories of how a bad customer experience can explode on social media, bringing a lot of unwanted attention to a business. But Chris Trottier of Hootsuite advises businesses not to ignore customers on social media, even if the situation appears negative. Your determination to work out problems with customers on social will prove to give you better results than ignoring complaints and rerouting them to other channels for resolvement.
The more time you spend working on your customer relations through social media, the more success you will find and the greater trust and rapport you will build. Social can be a big support for your customers, so don’t miss out on this great opportunity.